Persona, User scenario, Wireframes

A user profile should include:
• Name
• Occupation
• Age
• Gender
• Education
• Computing and Web experience
• Personal Web behavior patterns (how do they use the Web in their personal time)
• How they will use the site
• Any additional site specific demographics (e.g. a Newspaper site might find lifestyle, location, race, etc. important)
• Stock photo (putting a face to a name)

Use cases, sometimes called user scenarios, are narratives or flow diagrams that describe how users will interact with a Web site. Some people also refer to them as task analysis or user flows.

For example, if the information architects (IAs) at Yahoo were creating sample use cases, one might illustrate the following scenario.

A user opens their Firefox browser and sees their home page – Yahoo.com. The user checks the personalized news headlines on the home page. They then scroll down to check their local weather forecast. After that the user clicks on the Finance link to check on their stock holdings. continued…

Creating user scenarios is helpful in setting the IA and design direction for new sites. If the scenarios are accurate it will help the Web team understand how the site will be used. Effective requirements analysis, user and client interviews, and observation will help lead to accurate use cases.